Formative/Summative Assessment

Ungrading

Specifications Grading

Standards-Based Grading

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is a planned, ongoing process used by all students and teachers during learning and teaching to elicit and use evidence of student learning to improve student understanding of intended disciplinary learning outcomes and support students to become self-directed learners.  The goal is to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and students to improve their learning.  Formative assessment helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work.  Formative assessment also helps faculty recognize where students are struggling, so problems may be addressed immediately.  In general, formative assessments are low stakes, with low or no point value associated with them.

The following are examples of formative assessments:

• Polling students for answers.  This is often done with software like Zoom, Polleverywhere, or Slido.  However, it may be done by asking students to raise their hands or hold up different colored paper depending on their answers.
• Asking students to draw a concept map, hierarchy map, or diagram to represent their understanding of a topic.
• Asking students to summarize the main points of a lecture.

Summative Assessment

In contrast to formative assessment, summative assessment evaluates a student’s knowledge of material at a given point in time in relation to previously-determined learning goals.  Summative assessment is often more formal and higher-stakes than formative assessment and used to inform judgments about student competency or learning.  The goal is to evaluate student at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it to a standard or benchmark.  

The following are examples of summative assessment:

• A quiz
• An examination
• A paper
• A capstone assignment

Although formative and summative assessment are often discussed as mutually exclusive concepts, the two are more appropriately conceived as being on a continuum. Many original conceptualizations of formative assessment include summative assessment as a necessary component before any feedback can be provided (Taras, 2005). More recent thinking about the relationship between the two suggests more of a cyclical relationship. Formative assessments that measure students’ individual progress can be used to set the stage for later more summative, criterion-based assessment (Dolin et al., 2017).

Ungrading

Ungrading is a practice which eliminates or greatly minimizes the use of assigned points or letter grades in a course, focusing instead on providing frequent and detailed feedback to students on their work, in relation to the course learning goals.

Specifications Grading

In specifications grading, instead of using points to assess student work, the work is graded on a two-level rubric --- that is, some variation on Pass/Fail or Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory. Instructors craft a set of specifications or "specs" for assignments that define what Satisfactory work looks like. When the work is handed in, the instructor simply categorizes it as Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory depending on whether it meets the specs or doesn't.  There are no points, so there is no partial credit. Instead, instructors give detailed feedback on student work, and specs grading includes giving students the opportunity to revise their work based on the feedback, and submit a revision as an attempt to meet specs.

Standards-Based Grading

Standards based grading is a way for teachers to track learning progress based on proficiency for identified standards.  It is based on students showing signs of mastery or understanding various lessons and skills.  Standards based grading considers evidence of learning and the data it produces in different ways, rather than the traditional percentages and all-or-nothing grading systems.